John's Series 4: John's Sleepoever

John’s sleepover

John had not had a sleepover experience in China. He only slept at his cousin’s home for a few times when his father or I were away on business trips.

After his Canadian classmates told him about sleepover ,the next day he happened to read a story about Franklin’s sleepover. He started to long for a sleepover with his friends very much.

One day I arranged his first sleepover with his best friend Jessica. Jessica has told him about her sleepover several times so John has been hoping to have one with her one day. Finally the day came.

Jessica’s mother and I planned a sleep over for them on a Friday. On that day , John could hardly believe that his dream of sleepover came true that soon.. After dinner, Jessica took her two sleeping bags out of the backpack and put them in John’s room. He looked at the two sleeping bags and checked them again and again. He tried to imagine how to start his sleepover journey. Meanwhile, I showed Jessica’s mom to the guest’s room

After baths ,the two children changed into their pajamas. As planned, firstly ,they snuggled up on cushions and read one story to each other. At 9 o’clock, I knocked their door and said :”Cubs, it’s time for sleep now.”

John looked at Jessica and he felt very excited. He nodded and could hardly wait to slide into his sleeping bag.

I said good night to them . I turned off the light and walked away. Fifteen minutes later, I heard one low voice at the door when I was reading in bed. “Mom, I cannot sleep…”.

John was standing at the door, in his monkey pattern pajama. He seemed confused and shy:” Mom, Jessica felt scared and I felt it too.”

“What are you scared of ?” I asked John.

“Jessica told me a story of monsters , then she felt scared and I felt scared ,too.”

“How about I turn on the night light and your sleep pillow light so you and Jessica can watch the star and moon on the ceiling and try to sleep again ?”

John thought it was a good idea, he returned to his room.

A few moments later, John and Jessica both stood at the door again.

Jessica said: ‘I am so scared. I cannot sleep because I forgot to bring my momo (her sleep comfort).”

John said: “I cannot sleep ,either. Jessica told a monster story and she said we might have a monster here. I am so scared. And I think I saw a monster in the corner.”

You can figure out that John’s 1^st sleepover was not a success. Each of them turned to their mom that night. In the morning, John was in my bed and he slept next to me. And Jessica was sharing the guest room with her mom.

After the 1^st sleepover, a few days later ,John had a chance to have a sleepover again. The 2^nd time was so much better than the 1st . He started enjoying sleepovers .He asked me to reward him with sleepovers if he behaved well during the week.

Last week, his classmate Bruce’s mother and I arranged a sleepover for him and Bruce. I had told John that he had to be a good boy for the whole week, then he could have a chance to sleepover with Bruce. He had not had a sleepover with a classmate since he was new to his elementary school, so he was anticipating it very much.

For an entire week, every night before bed, he had asked me :”Mom, am I a good boy today?” I said yes to him from Monday to Thursday. On Friday morning, he asked me if he could have that sleepover with Bruce today. I said I needed to double check with Bruce’s mother about that.

To John’s disappointment, he could not have a sleepover with Bruce last Friday because Bruce had caught a cold and was not feeling well.

John was quite sad about it that night. But soon he was cheered up again, because he has five old friends at home. They are all stuffed toys: Benny (the little horse), Max (the little bear), Amy (the little rabbit), Danny (Tiger Qiao) and Emmet (the construction worker in Lego’s movie).

Soon he was busy arranging a sleepover with them one by one ,and starting the sleepover list from the youngest toy to the oldest.

The next day, one of his friends asked him about his sleepover experience the night before. He smiled mysteriously and said proudly: my sleepover was great!

A Special Conference

Last week I had a chance to be invited to a special event :2014 Vancouver International Integrative Medicine and Health Forum at Radisson Hotel, Richmond. The event was hosted by Canadian Integrative Cancer Therapies Association and was also co-organized by CICTAN Health Group Corp.

Before I went to the event, my friend told me that lots of cancer survivors from all over the world would share their experience of fighting cancer. When I was sitting in the conference room and looking around, I could not tell who was going to give us a speech on her/his cancer-fighting story. All people seemed very healthy and lively. I could not tell who had been a cancer patient and had lain in hospital beds, fighting against the King of Death. All the audience  looked even healthier than average people.

Fifteen minutes later after I was seated, one lady sat beside me. She looked pretty, elegant and dynamic. She was in a floral dress and wearing a golden hairband. I assumed she was a listener and one of the participants.

After a short opening speech by the organizer,  a lively and enthusiastic group performed a dance, I was soon overwhelmed by the enthusiasm and energy of the performers who were all cancer survivors. They were a group of patients who had suffered from all kinds of cancers : breast, stomach, lung, liver ，pancreatic and so on. Most of them had been even in a very late stage of cancer when they were diagnosed with it. One eighty year old lady Ms. Chen, told us that when she was diagnosed with breast cancer she was 29, a mother of three children. The doctor told her that she could only live three to six months. Another lady, who was in her fifties, said that when she became a cancer patient, she was already in a very late stage of lung cancer; cancer cells spread all over her body at that time, she was told she could live up to three months. Another woman, who actually was the lady who had been sitting beside me, she said she was 26 when she became a breast cancer patient and now she was in her forties. After she took all kinds of treatments, she went to university and worked on her studies, she obtained her Bachelor, and Master degrees in several years. She has been enjoying a fulfilling life after she fought back against cancer.

It was an amazing experience to sit with those brave people who had successfully fought against the evil and are now living a fulfilling and healthy life.

What I have been especially inspired by was that although lots of them had been told that they only could have a very short life,they found their own ways to fight against the disease beyond the traditional treatments.

Some of them took some chemo treatments and some of them didn’t since they were told that operations and chemo were not going to be efficient on them since the cancer had been too diagnosed too late. What had they done to come back to life again?

First, regular exercises. Each person insisted on doing exercises in a regular continuous basis. Some of them became great swimmers. They even can swim 1000 meters everyday; Some of them became dancers, they enjoyed dancing with music so beautifully; Some of them became hiking fans, they enjoyed hiking with their family and they hiked one hour every day. From them, I understand that no matter what exercise you take, you should take it seriously and regularly.

Second, they all have a very healthy life style. They eat lots of vegetables, fruits and fish. In addition to that, it’s said that several Chinese medicines were very efficient to assist the cancer treatments: genseng，gingko，ganoderma，rhodiola root and the spice named curry. Don’t’ go to bed later than 11 o’clock since the immune system needs to work when people are asleep. Last but not least, don’t get too tired.

Third, be happy and positive. A happy attitude is good for health. If people are always not happy ,their body’s energy level is low. As a result, the immune system works less efficiently so people easily get sick at that time.

Although scientists and oncologists have been studying and investing ways to cure cancer for many years, there are still mysteries that have not been discovered.

Why do people get cured automatically without any treatments and operations after being diagnosed with cancer? Why can people live many years after they were told by doctors that they only had several months left? Why do cancer cells disappear after patients had a high fever? Why can some herbal medicine cure cancer? Why does Qigong – a kind of breathing exercise have great good effects on cancer patients?

I am thinking that in the near future, cancer will not be a deadly illness. It will become a common disease just like a cold or a fever. If people take a dose of medicine or even do not take any medicine, they still get cured very soon and easily.

Never give up!

Last Easter Holiday, my friends and I were planning to take our children to a beautiful park, which we had not been to in Surrey. We had read from the newspaper and learnt that the park had train for kids to ride on plus Easter egg-hunt. Our kids were quite new to Canada so they were all excited about the activity for their first Easter Holiday here. The day before we left for the park, I checked the weather forecast and was told that it was going to be variable clouds in the morning plus a possibility of rain in the afternoon.

Should we keep our plan or change it? We mothers had a discussion on it the night before. Then we decided that we would have two plans. Plan A was to go to the park and Plan B was to go to the Science World .We all have annual passes for the Science World and the kids have been there several times.

In the morning, the sky was very clear and blue. The kids all asked their mothers to go to the park. But mothers had different opinions . One mom said “It is going to be a bad choice to go to the park for egg hunting if it rains.” Another mom said “We should go to the park and have an Easter Holiday with our kids.” We totally understand how eagerly the kids wanted to play at outdoors after a long winter. We wanted to have a real Easter holiday with our kids, too. Then we still decided that we would go to the Surrey Park and we hoped that the good weather would hold.

After 20 minutes drive, we were about halfway to Surrey. The blue sky had turned darker and there were gray clouds above us. Very soon the raindrops splattered on our window. Kids were sad. They cried: “Where’s the sun? Bring back the sun please”.

We moms were hesitating whether we should continue our trip to Surrey or not. Obviously it would be wise for us to turn back and go to the Science World since it is an indoor facility.

Finally, we decided to take a chance on the weather and continued to Surry. Later it turned out that once we had passed through some gray clouds and some rainy zones, the sky cleared up and the kids had a fantastic time in the park that day.

Lots of times we face situations in our lives like this. Do we believe it would be a sunny road or a wet, muddy one in front of us? Do we know if our choice will be right or wrong? Do we have confidence that the rainy day will end soon and we would see a sunny sky and a rainbow after that? Shall we give up since it seems so uncertain in the future?

Lots of times, life is just as unpredictable as the weather. Choosing a marriage partner is one of them.

I have a good girlfriend who has been in a messy personal situation after she got divorced 5 years ago. She and her ex-husband had a very romantic love story before they got married. Her husband was handsome, considerate and romantic. And he was making big progress in his career, too. She had thought that she was the luckiest woman who had married a perfect husband. But her dream was soon broken after she found her husband had several mistresses outside her ideal marriage. She later found that he even told one of his mistresses that he had never loved her. The only reason that he married her was because her father could help his business be more successful.

At that time, she thought that the whole world had betrayed her .She thought men were all cheaters and she believed that she could never find her Mr. Right in her life. Since she lived in a small city. All most everybody knew that she was betrayed . She felt humiliated and shamed, she wanted to evaporate from the world.

However, two years ago, she got married again. Her second husband is the type of man she had been looking for: responsible, patient and loyal. They love, appreciate and respect each other. I believe she has found her true Mr. Right this time.

She told me that she never knew that she could be so lucky to run into her Mr. Right soon after experiencing a heartbroken love story. She told me that women should never give up the whole male gender no matter how miserable an experience they have had with an individual man.

Not only does it happen to marriages, but also there are lots of things in life are like that. Don’t give up. You will see sunshine after the gray clouds or even  after a storm.

I had another friend who was diagnosed with cancer three years ago. Before she became a patient, she was on a very positive momentum in her career and her personal life. She was pregnant and was expecting her first baby. And her supervisor told her she could be promoted to a more senior position in three months for her outstanding performance.

One day she felt unwell and she went for a check-up. Then she was told that she should stop the pregnancy since she needed to have an operation , followed by radiation and chemo treatments right away. After she told her boss about her health situation, she lost the chance of getting a promotion .Her boss thought that she needed more rest as a patient instead of taking more responsibilities at this time. Several days later, her husband broke his right foot on the stairs and he had to be in bed for several months.

She told me that it seemed that all the worst things happened to her in that one week. Her health issue, the miserable feeling after taking a chemo treatment, losing her first baby , losing her beautiful long hair and losing the promotion opportunity that she has been waiting for so long, all together made her feel mentally and physically destroyed .She became desperate and lost the confidence to live.

Three years later, after she had finished all her treatments and was well recovered. One day, she told me that actually she had leant a lot from being a patient. She thought she had been reborn after the terrible year of suffering.

She told me that she had not known how to live a normal life. Before she was sick, the only value she had was working ,making more money and spending money. She did not know how to slow down. She did not know how to appreciate the nature and people. She thought money was the king that she could use the money to get everything she needed. She was very self-centered and limited. She was eager for a quick success and instant benefit. But she was always rarely really happy. She was unable to enjoy life although she had earned a lot of money.

Now she says she is enjoying a real life. She enjoys going in nature and hiking with her beloved husband. She enjoys staying at home cooking for her family and taking care of her newborn baby. She enjoys slowing down her pace. She finished reading lots of books, which had been staying on her to-read list for more than five years. She enjoys taking her parents and grandparents out and had some real family time together. She knows what she needs most now.

The two ladies in the above stories are both my good friends. I had been experiencing the ups and downs together with them. Sometimes life is like that. It sometimes gives you times that is so hard  that you think life is even not worth living ,but that’s exactly when you cannot give up.

Last but not least ,when life treats you badly, I recommend you to watch the video or a book by Nick Vujicic. Nick is a young man who had no limbs when he was born. He has been struggling both mentally and physically since he was a child.

Could you imagine? What kind of life could he have with no arms and no legs?

Well, you must be surprised to find that, at age of 17, he started his non-profit organization and became a great motivational speaker and doer in the world. He wrote a book called “Life without limits.” From him, I saw the spirit of “never give up”.

It seems to me that when we are suffering the worst things in our lives, we usually think that the bad luck would stay with us forever. But hold on, take a deep breath. Tell yourself that this is not the end of the world. This could be a task that is assigned by God to make you become a stronger person. After you go through it, you would be a stronger and happier person.

In my speech, I have given three different extreme examples of people who seem to lose everything in their lives. In one case is one’s own reputation and trust of a marriage partner. Another one is the person’s physical self and the productive self all seems to go out of the window. And Nick started off with a bigger problem that most of people cannot imagine. Yet all of them find their ways through the terrible events and get a stronger and deeper appreciation of life.

So what I want to emphasize is that no matter what choices life gives you ,just like the constant question we have in Vancouver what weather is going to be tomorrow .We understand that the weather report is almost 50% right and 50% not quite right. The key thing is to accept your pain, have confidence in your life ,don’t lose hope and keep going. Nothing can give you a bigger confidence from a super hard challenge and then you overcome it. When you are tired, keep going and never give up–and remember that, in a perfect timing, you will reap an unimaginable harvest.